Forgiveness
by Athena Alexandria
Summary: Sequel to Trust and Regret. Jack broke his promise to Kate with devastating consequences. When he comes back into her life unexpectedly will she be able to forgive him? Takes place after the flashforwards in Through the Looking Glass.
1. Chapter 1

I'm pretty sure most people stopped reading after "Trust", but since "Regret" ended on such a downbeat note, and the handful of you who did comment asked for a sequel, I decided to add a third part to this series, set after the flashforwards in Through the Looking Glass. At the moment it looks like it will be a two shot with an epilogue but that depends on reviews... ;)

* * *

FORGIVENESS

Part 1.

It had happened in an instant.

That was how long she'd allowed herself to be distracted.

One minute he was giggling as his swing sailed back towards the clouds, the next he was airborne, letting out an ear-splitting wail when his head connected with the hard-packed earth.

That was how she knew that he was alive, that his neck hadn't been broken; what scared her more than his cries was the blood, matting his hair and staining his clothes and the dirt beneath him.

An hour later she could still see it on her hands; the thighs of her jeans where she'd wiped them; on her blouse from cradling him in her lap in ambulance, trying to calm him so that the doctors could close the wound.

She wouldn't leave the waiting area until they were done so one of the nurses had brought her some paper towels to clean herself up with, but by then it was too late. It had dried, a testament for everyone who saw her to what a poor mother she was turning out to be.

She couldn't even keep her kids safe. She couldn't keep them from winding up in the hospital.

"Kate?"

Speak of the devil…

As she lifted her head and her eyes locked on his where he stood frozen in the corridor that led to his office, it occurred to her that devil wasn't a bad choice of word when she considered her last trip to the ER.

It wasn't that she thought he was evil, because she didn't, not even a little. That was half the problem. She didn't know _what_ to think, how to feel. She wanted to hate him, but she couldn't, not when he looked worse than he had at the airport: exhausted, sad and broken beyond repair. She couldn't, because at the same time she felt the powerful compulsion to run back to his arms, as much for his comfort as for her own.

He was still Jack after all. _Her_ Jack, even if he couldn't see it.

"Is everything… Are you okay?" he asked without coming any closer, the worry lines in his forehead deepening as he took in her tortured expression; the marks on her clothes before he seemed to notice that she was alone. "Where's Aaron?"

When she wasn't sure how to answer, or even if he deserved one, after everything, he moved over to her, setting his clipboard down and taking the chair beside hers. "Hey. What happened?"

As always, she could feel herself unravelling under the intensity of his gaze, touched that he was willing to brave her wrath on the off chance that she might tell him.

The last time they were here in this hospital, during one of the worst nights of her life, she'd insisted that she never wanted to see him again when all she really wanted was for him to hold her. She'd pushed him away when they should be drawing strength from each other. Was she really prepared to do that again now when she needed him?

"Kate, talk to me. _Please_."

While she'd expected the words, she wasn't prepared for the desperation in his tone. How long had it been since he'd had to plead for her to share something like this? She couldn't remember.

"He had an accident," she confessed, the tears that she'd managed to hold off the entire time she'd been sitting there spilling over onto her cheeks. How was it that he always had that effect on her? She could lie to herself, but not to him. "We were at the park and he… he fell off the swing, hit his head on the ground."

She almost couldn't bring herself to see his reaction, if he blamed her when he was the closest thing Aaron had to real family here in L.A., the knot in her gut twisting at how alarmed he was.

"But he's gonna be alright? It's not serious?"

"They're stitching him up, but they think I should be able to take him home with me," she agreed before he took her guilt for something else.

He slumped back in his seat and while she knew how hard it would be for him to admit it when he'd spent so long keeping Aaron at arm's length, she could see that a huge weight had been lifted from his mind. It was one less thing for him to worry about. One less thing for him to feel responsible for. "Good. That's good.

Even though she knew that it was, that it could have been worse, she wasn't prepared to let herself off the hook yet, not when she should never have allowed it to happen in the first place. This was supposed to be her new life, her fresh start. She couldn't afford to screw up this time.

"Hey," he murmured, nudging her chin to get her to look at him, the gesture so reminiscent of the man he'd been before that just for a moment, she felt like they'd stepped back in time. "This isn't your fault. It could've happened to anyone."

As soon as she did, she _almost_ wished that she hadn't when she found herself drowning in a pair of eyes that were so foreign to her now and yet still so familiar. If she ignored the beard, and the lines that seemed to multiply each time she saw him, he was still the same. Everything had changed, and yet somehow nothing had. She still loved him, and she knew that he wouldn't be there if he didn't still love her.

"No it couldn't," she insisted. "I wasn't watching him, Jack. I wasn't paying attention."

She wondered then if she should tell him the truth, that she'd heard a baby crying and she'd allowed herself to be distracted by it. That no matter how hard she tried to move past it, she couldn't seem to let go, of him, of their son, of the life that they should have had.

"I made a mistake and now he's in the hospital. I don't know why I thought I could do this."

She wasn't aware of how this could sound until she saw that it had struck a nerve with him; he was silent for a long moment, massaging his brow with his fingers as he dropped his head into his hand.

"Believe it or not, but you're a good mother, Kate. He's happy, he's healthy… he's alive." He let out a bitter laugh, betraying the darkness inside of him, the darkness that she'd thought she could save him from before he'd hurt her in ways that she never would have expected from him. "You're doing better than some people."

She wanted to tell him that she forgave him, but she still didn't know if she could. "You should get back," she reminded him. "I'm sure someone's looking for you."

She tried to keep her tone as gentle as possible, but she could see how much this hurt him. "Well, good luck," he said as he got to his feet, tucking his clipboard back under his arm, his voice taking on a politeness that she found absurd after the intimacy they'd just shared. "Children are pretty resilient. I'm sure it won't be long before Aaron's begging you to take him back to the park."

He hadn't made it give feet before he amended, as an afterthought, "Tell him…" There didn't seem to be any words for the shame he felt at abandoning him for his own selfish reasons. He shook his head, running his fingers over his hair. "Just take care of him, okay?"

"Okay," she agreed with a tentative smile.

Something about his expression made her think that he wasn't as far gone as he wanted her to believe, that in time he could be the old Jack again, the one that she'd fallen in love with.

He turned to go.

"Jack?" She called after him, grateful when he stopped, his back still to her as he waited for her to finish. "Thank you."

* * *

Interesting fact: The idea for this chapter came from something that actually happened to me when I was about Aaron's age. I decided to try swinging without holding on and it obviously didn't work out too well. Fortunately my brain doesn't appear to have been scrambled.

In Part 2: It's Kate's turn to take care of Jack when she receives a disturbing phone call from one of his colleagues...;)


	2. Chapter 2

Thanks for the reviews. :) It means a lot that so many of you are still enthusiastic about this series even though it's kind of dark and angsty.

For those of you who asked about my accident, it was a long time ago so obviously I'm fine now. No brain damage. I didn't even need stitches in the end... ;)

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Part 2.

Despite all of her worry, Aaron was discharged with only a handful of butterfly clips to seal the wound on his scalp, but that didn't lesson the guilt that Kate felt at injuring him.

If she hadn't allowed her mind to wander, if she hadn't taken her eyes off of him, then he wouldn't have fallen off the swing in the first place, and she wouldn't have spent the afternoon with him in the ER.

Of course then she never would have bumped into Jack, but she still wasn't sure that she wouldn't have preferred it that way. Every time their paths crossed, he managed to chip away a little more of the wall that she'd build around her heart. Every time she saw him, she just got more confused.

She was determined to make it up to Aaron by giving him her full attention; she managed to push Jack out of her thoughts as she fixed him macaroni in the shape of little dinosaurs and let him stay up watching his favourite movies with her while he rested on the couch. But later, as she carried him up to his bed, she found them returning to the man that she'd once loved. The man she _still_ loved, if she was honest with herself.

Their colouring was different – Aaron had always been as fair as his uncle was dark – but when he frowned and shifted as she tried to keep him on his side, she imagined that she could see Jack in him, and she wondered if he wasn't a little like how their son would have looked.

Even though she never had the chance to see him, she could still picture him in her mind's eye: he would've been perfect, with her chestnut curls and Jack's brown eyes and a sweet, childish smile like Aaron's. They would have been the best of friends – brothers, like everyone believed – and for the first time in her life she would have had everything that she'd ever wanted, but instead it was just the two of them again and it seemed like it always would be.

The children's Tylenol she'd given him seemed to have knocked him out; she finished tucking him in, pulling the covers tight around him so that he wouldn't be tempted to roll onto his back.

Then she switched out the light, placing a lingering kiss against his forehead before she stood and left the room.

While she'd managed to change out of her bloody clothes, she still hadn't been able to get to the shower; she was looking forward to taking one – maybe even a long, hot bath – when the phone went off in the bedroom.

Glancing at her watch, she was surprised to see that it was almost ten: too late for social calls; as she raced to pick it up, she tried to ignore the sickening sense of dread that flooded through her.

"Hello?"

Somewhere deep down she expected it to be Jack, drunk and rambling at her about how he needed to see her, but it was a woman's voice that she heard, unfamiliar until she introduced herself.

"I'm sorry to bother you, Kate. This is Erica Stevenson. I don't know if you remember me, but I work with Jack at St Sebastian's."

She thought back to the last time she'd visited his office and the image of a pretty African American woman popped into her mind. "Is he… is he okay?" she pressed, her stomach clenching with fear as she tried to figure out why one of his colleagues would be calling her.

In all the time that he'd been sitting beside her she hadn't thought to ask him how he was; in fact, she'd pulled away from him as soon as he tried to tell her.

"I caught him stealing pills from one of our supply closets," Erica explained, Kate closed her eyes in resignation.

He _was_ still killing himself, and this time it was her fault because she wouldn't listen to what he was saying. If she had, he might not be in the trouble that he was in.

"When I suggested he go home and sleep it off, he became angry, violent – started ranting things that didn't make a whole lot of sense."

She sounded almost apologetic as she added, "I know the two of you broke up… I wouldn't have called you except that your name was one of the few things I did recognise."

Kate knew then that she had to go to him. If what Erica had told her was true, and it was related to their meeting that afternoon, then she might be the only one who could keep him from doing something that she at least would live to regret. "Where is he?"

There was a pause on the other end of the line. "They're holding him down in the psych ward until we can figure out what to do with him," Erica confessed, and Kate felt as though all of the air had been forced from her lungs. He hadn't seemed crazy when she talked to him, just sad. What did they think he was going to do? "Given what he's been through, the chief is willing to let him off with a suspension, but no one's prepared to send him home alone in this state."

She relaxed on hearing that he hadn't been formally committed like Hurley, that he wasn't a danger to himself or anyone else, at least not for the time being. "I'll be there as soon as I can," she agreed with a sigh. "I just need to find someone to watch my son."

* * *

After convincing Veronica to stay the night with Aaron, Kate got into her car and headed back across town to St. Sebastian's.

Erica met her at the entrance and took her to a small, cell like room where Jack standing with his back to them, examining the bars on the window as though searching for an escape.

"He seems calm now, but there's no guarantee he'll stay that way," she said as she unlocked it. "Would you like someone to go in with you?"

Kate still didn't know what he was going to say to her, if he was going to mention things that could get them into trouble or continue the conversation that they'd begun in the E.R., but whatever it was, she decided that it was better kept between them. He deserved that much dignity.

"Thanks, but I think I can handle him," she assured her, forcing a smile as she let her inside.

He spun around at the sound of the door, his face lighting up with relief when he saw her. "Hey," he said as he moved towards her, raking his fingers through his hair as if wasn't sure what else to do with them. "You have to tell them, Kate – tell them I don't need to be here."

There was a distinct slur in his voice and when he stepped into the light from the hall she saw that his eyes had that vacant, glazed over look she recognised from the airport.

"Are you sure, Jack?" she asked him, doing her best to keep her own voice calm, gentle; to convince him that she was still on his side. "Because it seems like you do."

She had hoped that by appealing to the rational side that she knew must be buried somewhere beneath all the drugs, she would encourage him to re-examine his behaviour, but he didn't appear to be listening, glancing around as though expecting someone else.

"Where's the baby, Kate? Why didn't you bring him?"

"Who, Aaron?" she asked, her frown mirroring his as she tried to understand why he sounded so agitated. In all the months they'd been apart he hadn't tried to visit him once. "He's at home with Veronica."

He must still be worried about him, she decided. It was the only explanation that she could think of. "He's good. Better," she finished with a reassuring smile.

Her words were meant to soothe him, to set his fears at ease; she stared at him, taken aback when his hands flew to the sides of his head, pressing into his temples. "Not _Aaron_, the baby, Kate," he insisted, his tone clipped, losing patience. "I wanna see him."

It took her a moment to register what he'd said, and then her whole body went rigid with shock, her palm itching to slap him. How dare he bring that up? Didn't he know how hard it was for her to talk about?

"The baby's gone, Jack. You know that," she reminded him in a voice that almost didn't recognise as her own.

She expected him to beg again for forgiveness, or to ask her to leave so that he could lick his wounds, but to her surprise he lost the tentative grip he had on himself then, his eyes flashing with anger as he advanced on her, backing her into the door.

"You can't just take my son away from me. I'm his _father _– I have rights."

Whatever twisted game he was playing, she didn't think he could possibly understand the effect it was having on her, how deeply he was hurting her.

"I didn't take him away from you, Jack," she spat, bitter tears springing to her eyes as she tried to hold herself together. She wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of breaking down in front of him. "You did that yourself."

When he blinked at her confused, she wondered if he was just disoriented from whatever he'd been taking before Erica called her.

"We had a fight. I was leaving you. You tried to stop me…" she explained, hoping to jolt him back to his senses, but no matter how hard she tried to fill in the gaps in his memory, he didn't seem to know what she was talking about. "I lost him, Jack. _We_ lost him. You really don't remember?"

She knew that whatever struggle was going on inside his head was real when his expression crumpled with grief, as though it were the first time anyone had told him this story. As though he hadn't already lived it.

"He's gone? The baby's gone?"

"I'm sorry, Jack," she agreed, feeling an involuntary pang of sympathy for him despite her resolve to go punishing him. Nothing she said or did to him could be worse than having to hear it twice, all the while knowing that he was to blame.

He wouldn't look at her, turning to pace the length of the room like a caged animal as he muttered to himself, remembering. "I pushed you. I pushed you and you fell. Oh God…" When he met her eyes again, his were wide with horror as the truth came rushing back to him. "I killed him."

She wanted to tell him that he didn't – at least not in the way that he thought – but hadn't she spent the last few months convincing herself of the opposite?

His strength failed him at this realisation and he collapsed to his knees in front of her. "I'm sorry, Kate," he whispered, his forehead coming to rest over her stomach. "I am so, so sorry."

He pressed his face against it and as she watched his chest convulse with anguished sobs, his tears soaking through to her skin, she found that she didn't want to see him suffer anymore, not when he'd already been to hell and back.

She lifted her hand, tentatively at first, her resolve building as she placed it against the back of his head, stroking his hair. "I know."

As they stood there like that, she remembered his words as he sat next to her in the E.R.:

"_Hey. This isn't your fault. It could've happened to anyone."_

He was right. It could happen to anyone. She was just lucky that her mistake could be fixed.

She knew then what she had to do for him, what he'd done for her.

"Hey, it's okay," she told him, her voice soft as though talking to a child, allowing her legs carry them both to the floor. She swallowed against the lump that rose in her throat, hot tears spilling over onto her own cheeks as she cradled him against her, letting him bury his face in the side of her neck. "You didn't mean it – you didn't mean to hurt him. It was an accident."

"It was?" He raised his head, hopeful, and she knew what he was thinking: if it was an accident then it really wasn't his fault. Wasn't that how she'd felt with Aaron?

She cupped his face in her hands, holding his gaze as she agreed, "Yeah, Jack, it was. I'm sorry I didn't tell you that before."

He nodded, relieved, returning his head to her shoulder, and the weight of guilt finally lifted, she felt him begin to go limp, succumbing to whatever chemicals were still in his system.

"Come on, let's get you to bed," she told him, draping his arm across her shoulders so that she could manoeuvre them both up to their feet.

He went easily, sinking onto the narrow cot and lying still for her while she slid off his shoes.

She waited until his exhaustion took over and his eyelids fluttered shut to get up off the mattress, but a moment later they drifted open again.

"Kate? Will you be here when I wake up?" he murmured, reminding her so much of a little boy, of Aaron that it tugged at her heartstrings and she couldn't help smiling through her tears.

She couldn't leave him when he was so vulnerable. Not when he needed her to get through the night.

"Yeah, Jack, I'll be here," she agreed, wondering how differently things might have turned out if she'd given him the chance to do the same thing for her all of those months ago, if she could have saved them both so much pain.

She stepped out of her own shoes, crawling into the space between him and the wall. The cot wasn't designed to hold more than one person at a time – certainly not two adults – but that just gave her an excuse to hold onto him, wrapping her arms around his waist so that she was spooned close against him.

"I'll be here, so you just sleep, okay?" she whispered, pressing her lips to his temple, letting them linger as she inhaled the familiar scent of his skin.

No matter how hard she'd tried to deny it, she'd missed him. She would until he was his old self again.

She brushed his cheek tenderly with her fingers, listening as his breathing slowed and he began to relax, to let go. "Just go to sleep…"


	3. Chapter 3

Thanks for the reviews. I know it seems kind of strange, Jack forgetting about Kate's miscarriage and his part in it, but since he was ranting about his father as though he were alive I figure his head is in a pretty weird place.

Most of you asked for them to have another conversation once Jack was sober, so here it is. I'm half dead from the flu (slight exaggeration but I'm starting to feel like it!) but I pushed myself because I wanted to get it up before the finale. ;)

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Part 3.

The last thing Kate remembered was whispering soothing words to Jack as he drifted off on the cot; she wasn't aware of succumbing herself until she felt him shift beside her and she opened her own eyes to find his blinking back.

She realised then that he must have turned to face her during the night, because she'd curled against him in a way that managed to be compromising and yet completely natural at the same time. The strange part was that she wasn't even conscious of doing it. It was as though the pull she felt towards him when she was awake translated to when they were asleep.

"Kate. You're here," he murmured, rubbing his face to clear the fog and she could see that he was just as surprised as she was. Maybe even more since he hadn't exactly been lucid the last time they'd spoken.

"You asked me to stay," she reminded him, sitting up and raking her fingers through her tousled curls, tensing at the implication that this had slipped his mind when he'd made it seem so important the night before.

She relaxed, appeased when he flashed her a tiny smile, embarrassment mingled with gratitude. "I remember."

As their gazes locked, each trying to understand what this meant to the other, she could feel a current passing between them, the same unresolved tension that had always existed between them, only now it was loaded with shared history and grief.

He was the first to break eye contact, turning away from her and swinging his legs over the side of the cot. He stumbled as he tried to get up, cursing under his breath when he was forced to grip the bed frame to keep from landing back where he started; in the end he had no choice but to accept her help, allowing her to hold his arm until he could stand on his own.

"Well… Thanks," he told her once he'd steadied himself enough to let go. There was an awkward pause and then he added, "You should probably get back to Aaron. I'm sure he's up by now."

She could see that he was doing his best to get rid of her so that he could nurse his self-pity. "That's it?" she demanded, the thought of him blowing her off so that he could get wasted again filling her with indignation. "That's all you're gonna say?"

"I already thanked you for coming, Kate," he reminded her, defensive, bracing himself for a fight. "What else _is_ there to say?"

He wasn't making it easy; she wished that she could just wash her hands of him but the tiny glimmers of the old Jack she saw here and there made that impossible. "How about I love you?" she supplied, her eyes boring into his, searching for a sign that her coming there, trying to save him, wasn't in vain. "I miss you? I wanna come home?"

She couldn't help noting with a sense of satisfaction that he didn't bother to deny the truth of what she'd said, arguing instead, "What difference would me saying any of those things make, Kate?"

She'd expected him to be a lot of things, but a coward was never one of them. "It would make a difference to me," she insisted, folding her arms with a stubborn look, digging her heels in.

"Okay, fine, if that's what you need to hear," he agreed with a sigh, running a hand over his beard. "I do love you and I miss you, but I'm not sure that I _should_ come home."

"Why not?" she pressed, frustrated that he couldn't just accept what she was offering.

"Because I'm not safe for you and Aaron to be around, Kate," he murmured, his voice growing soft, sad. "Look what happened last time."

He was trying to convince her that she should feel sorry for him, that she should be the one to back down, but she couldn't, not when he'd done enough of that for both of them.

"That's a cop out, Jack, and you know it," she retorted, her eyes prickling with tears as she tried not to cry. "If you really wanted to change you could change."

The passion behind her words seemed to catch him off guard; he stared at her, stunned. "You honestly believe that?" he asked. "That I could change?"

"Yes," she agreed, forcing back a smile at the knowledge that she'd gotten through to him on some level. "Why else would I be here?"

"Why?" he pressed, his breath hitching as he waited for her to answer.

He hadn't given her many reasons of late, but somehow she still did. She needed to believe that things would get better, for both of them. "Because I have faith in you," she assured him. "I have faith in _us_. I'm sorry you don't."

She took a step towards him now that she knew he was listening, taking his hands in both of hers. "If I can forgive you… You need to start forgiving yourself, Jack. It's the only way we're ever gonna get past this."

His eyes shone when he lifted them to meet hers, and for the first time she saw something like hope there. "We? You mean you still wanna do this, after…?" he trailed off, his expression contorting with pain.

"I've tried living without you and I can't," she confessed, stifling a sob of her own.

Leaving him like that, so broken and confused, knowing that she might never seen him again, had been one of the hardest things she'd ever had to do. She couldn't go through that again, not when she was still so afraid of what would happen if she walked out that door. "Please, Jack, you have to let me help you. I already lost him – I don't wanna lose you too."

She tried to compose herself, but she couldn't seem to keep herself from breaking down, collapsing against his chest when he approached her with an awkward, "Hey, it's okay."

His resolve to keep her at a distance failed him at the sight of her tears and he brought his own hand up to cradle the back of her head. "You're not gonna lose me, Kate."

"That's right, because you're gonna come home with me and we're gonna throw out every prescription drug in the house and then you're going to rehab," she whispered into his shirt, hugging him back as hard as she could, comforted by how solid and real he felt.

The beard would have to go too, but that discussion could wait until later, once he'd had time to digest the rest of her terms.

"No more excuses, Jack," she insisted, her tone firm, resolute this time. This wasn't something that she was willing to negotiate on. "You're doing this – for me and for your nephew. He may not know you're supposed to take care of him, but you do."

These words seemed to rouse whatever demons lay dormant inside of him; he pulled away from her, but before he could convince her to leave again she silenced him with a furious look.

"But that's it. I need you to understand that, Jack. You don't get another chance – not when you've had too many already. This has to stop _now_."

He swallowed, forcing a watery smile, his apprehension clear. "Three strikes and I'm out. Got it."

She wasn't even sure that what he'd said counted as a joke, but she let out a soft laugh. "Does that mean you're not gonna fight me on this?" she asked him, suddenly hopeful.

"Fight you? When you've already made up your mind?" he teased her, this hint of the old Jack, the Jack that she knew, warming her heart, making her think that maybe, just maybe things could work out.

As he returned her smile, she could feel the tension building again. This time she tilted her chin up towards his, her lips meeting his on the way down, caressing them delicately. It was as precarious as the deal they'd just made. She wasn't ready to take it too far yet and neither it seemed was he; before it could turn into anything more passionate he broke it, drawing her into a fierce hug instead.

His tears slicked her skin as he kissed the side of her neck, burying his face in her hair, and she found that she was crying too.

She pulled back with a tearful smile once she'd composed herself enough to speak. "You ready to go home?"

* * *

He was still in no condition to drive so she took him over to his apartment to change before heading back to the house.

When she let them in through the front door he just stood there in the foyer eyeing his surroundings as though he hadn't been in that room dozens of times before.

"See? Exactly how you left it," she told him, squeezing his side as his gaze fell on the stairs and she felt him shudder against her.

"I'm glad," he agreed once he returned it to her, kissing the top of her head when she rested it on his shoulder. "You have no idea how much I've missed this place."

"Anybody home?" she called out just as Aaron came scampering in from the deck clutching a half eaten piece of toast, Veronica following at a more reasonable pace.

"Jack!" he cried when he saw that she wasn't alone, launching himself at him.

Jack's eyes widened at receiving such an enthusiastic greeting, but he grinned as his nephew caught him around the legs. "Hey, buddy. You've gotten big."

Aaron puffed out his chest, proud at hearing this. "Guess how many I am?" he insisted, holding up three fingers on his free hand when Jack shook his head to humour him. "This many."

"Wow, you _have_ gotten big," Jack told him with a soft chuckle, sweeping his hair aside until he found the wound. He winced sympathetically as he inspected it. "How's your head? It must've really hurt when you fell."

"Sore," he agreed, looking rueful as he brought his hand up to rub it before he thought of something else, something more important. "Are you back to live with Mommy and me for good?" he asked.

Jack glanced over at her with questioning look and she smiled, nodding to let him know that it was his call; that if he was prepared to put in the effort then the offer for him to move back in still stood.

He shared her grin for a moment before shifting his attention back to Aaron. "Yeah, I'm back for good."

This seemed to please Aaron as he wriggled out of his grip, bouncing around the foyer, already making plans for how he was going to use him. "Then maybe when you tuck me in you could read me the end of the story? The one about Alice?"

He remembered his manners then, shooting Kate an apologetic smile as he added, "Please? Mommy doesn't tell it as good as you."

The thought of finishing it without Jack troubled her, since it was too much like admitting that he was really gone. When Aaron had asked her, she'd glossed over the ending, distracting him with other books until he lost interest. She was surprised that he even remembered.

She raised an eyebrow at Jack. What was it that she'd told him all those months ago?

He _was_ good at this, a natural, even if he couldn't see what she and Aaron both saw. Maybe one day he would start to believe her.

His face lit up with pleasure, and she knew that he was touched when he beamed at his nephew, giving the back of his neck an affectionate squeeze. "Sure thing."


	4. Chapter 4

Okay, so I finally got around to finishing this... ;)

* * *

Epilogue

"Why can't I have them again?" Aaron pressed as Kate led him into the park, his small hand trapped in one of hers, a bunch of blue helium balloons wound tightly in the other.

"Because they're for your baby brother," she reminded him with more patience than she knew she had. He'd been asking her the same question all morning.

"The one who's in heaven with Grandpa?" he checked and she turned to stare at him, surprised. She'd never mentioned Jack's father to him, much less told him that he was dead. She wondered if Jack had.

She glanced back to where he was trailing a few steps behind them but he didn't appear to be listening, lost in thoughts of his own. It was exactly a year since the fight that had cost them the life of their unborn son, so she knew that he had a lot on his mind.

"Yeah. Today is kind of his birthday," she explained, tearing her eyes from him and returning her attention to Aaron, hoping that this at least he would understand.

"But if he's in heaven, how will he get them?" he insisted after a moment, and she let out a barely audible sigh, afraid that he was trying to out-logic her so that she would give them to him, until she saw that he was serious, his brow furrowed in contemplation.

"We're gonna send them to him," she told him with a reassuring smile.

"How?"

She squeezed his hand, touched by his fear that the baby wouldn't get his "present" on time.

She could still remember how excited he was the day she and Jack sat him down and explained that he was going to be a big brother. Telling him that that wasn't going to happen when her own heart was already broken was one of the hardest thing she'd ever had to do.

She could never bring herself to talk about it after that, shutting down whenever he mentioned it, but Jack's counsellor at rehab thought that it was important for them to acknowledge their loss as a family, so she'd come up with the idea for the balloons as a symbolic act of letting go.

Since their son was technically never born, they hadn't been able to bury him; she hated the thought of him in a cemetery, settling on the park instead because it was Aaron's favourite place and she was sure that if he'd lived it would've been his too.

She could still see Aaron showing off to him on the swings that he loved so much, bragging about how much higher he could go, racing him up the fort, defending him against anyone who tried to bully him when they got older…

"You'll see," she told him.

She let him choose a quiet spot in the shade of one of the trees he liked to climb when he was feeling adventurous mood, before distributing the balloons: one for him, one for herself, and one for Jack.

Aaron threw his into the air as soon as she'd finished explained what she wanted him to do, bounding along in its wake as it drifted away.

She didn't want to prolong the experience; thinking of her mother, who she hoped had finally gotten her wish to meet her grandson – her _real _grandson – and was taking care of him, she released hers next.

Jack should have been right behind her, but even though he'd come a long way since the night she'd found him half out of his mind at the hospital, he clung to his, unable to bring himself to commit this final act of closure.

"You heard what she said, Jack," she reminded him gently, wrapping her hand around the string alongside his so that they could do it together. "It's time."

He nodded slowly, but when he glanced up at her, she could see the tears glistening in his eyes, mirroring the ones welling in her own.

"Maybe you should say something," she suggested, in case this helped him resolve some of his issues, but he shook his head, swallowing hard.

"No, you're right," he agreed, his eyes hard, his jaw set with determination. "This is something that I have to do, so let's just do it."

She knew better than to push him into making a ceremony of it, understanding him when he said that he just needed it to be over. They both needed it to be over, so that they could finally move on. "On the count of three. One… Two… _Three_…"

To her relief, he let go of it a second after she did, and together they watched it sail up into the sky and disappear.

"Mommy?" She lowered her eyes when she felt a soft tug at the hem of her blouse to see that Aaron had stopped chasing his and was standing beside her, looking up at her expectantly. "Can I go on the swings now?"

It warmed her heart to see the corners of Jack's lips quirk into a tiny smile.

"Of course you can, sweet pea," she agreed, "just be careful, okay?" She exchanged a wary glance with Jack. "The last thing this family needs is another trip to the hospital."

_Another accident_, she corrected herself silently, knowing that what she'd just described was inevitable after what she'd learned a few days before.

"Jack? Will you push me?" Aaron asked, his voice hopeful, but the slump in Jack's shoulders and his worn expression warned her that he wasn't up to it. It hadn't been an easy day for her, but she knew that it had to be harder for him.

"Honey, I think Jack's a little tired right now – how about I come do it instead?" she suggested.

She could see that he was disappointed, but he nodded, scurrying over to claim the one she knew was his favourite.

"You okay?" she checked as soon as he was gone, turning to study Jack's face.

He forced a weak smile for her benefit. "I will be, but you mind if I sit this one out? I think I need to be alone for a while."

She didn't want to leave him, knowing how easy it would be for him to slip back into old habits, but she had to start trusting him some time, and if he could make it through _today_…

She caught him in a lingering hug, squeezing him as she placed a chaste kiss against his cheek and stepped back. "I'll see you back at the house."

* * *

That night she tried not to drift off as she waited from Jack to come in from reading to Aaron. She'd offered to take over that responsibility just for tonight, but she knew that he felt guilty about neglecting him at the park.

They'd finished _Alice's Adventures In Wonderland _the week she'd brought him home from rehab, before he was reinstated at the hospital, following it with _Through the Looking-Glass _and _The Wizard of Oz_, which was all Aaron could talk about these days. She must have seen the movie at least fifteen times since Jack made the mistake of getting him the DVD.

"How're you holding up?" she asked, pulling herself up straighter against the headboard when he sat down on the edge of the bed beside her.

"I've had better days," he agreed, reaching out to lay his hand over hers in her lap. He squeezed it, rubbing the back with his thumb as he gave her a tiny smile. "I've also had worse."

Something about seeing it there, so close, without him having any idea, made her feel ashamed of herself for encouraging him to bear his soul to her while she was keeping a secret this _huge_ from him, and she found that she couldn't hold it in anymore. She didn't think that she could deal with another night of tossing and turning beside him, forcing herself not to wake him and just blurt it out, not when she needed his assurance that he would be there to support her this time.

"Jack, there's something you should know," she confessed, withdrawing her hand. "I wanted to wait until after today to tell you."

He turned his full attention on her, one part concerned, one apprehensive as he waited for her to go on, and she wondered if he thought she was going to break up with him. "Tell me what?"

She wasn't sure how else to do it, so she decided to come straight out with it, her voice barely above a whisper. "I'm pregnant."

His expression didn't change, and she wasn't sure that he'd heard her until he asked, "Are you sure?"

She couldn't tell if he was being pragmatic or if he was hoping that there was a chance she was wrong. "I didn't even know if I _could_ get pregnant again after…" she explained, choking on the rest of the words when he glanced away, staring off into the darkness. "So I went to the doctor and yeah, Jack, I'm sure."

She licked her lips, waiting for some kind of response, her heart sinking when he failed to react. "I know we haven't really talked about it," she rushed on, wishing that he would just yell or hit the wall so that she knew he was upset. His calmness rattled her more than his anger ever could. "But I… I'm not sorry it happened."

She was terrified, hopeful, happier than she'd been in months as she fixed him with a nervous smile. "I really want this, Jack. I want us to have this chance."

When she still couldn't tell what he was thinking, she was afraid that he didn't. "Is that… is that okay?" she asked, less sure of herself. She couldn't bear it if something that meant so much to her pushed him back over the edge, and he left her again to dig himself into another black hole.

He was silent for a moment longer, and then he smiled, a real smile. It wasn't until she saw it again that she realised how much she's missed it. She'd almost forgotten how sweet it was, how much younger it made him look.

"It's not _okay_, Kate… We're having a baby." He shook his head in a kind of stunned disbelief, his eyes travelling down to her belly, lingering there. "We're having a baby."

Before she could reply, he swept her into a hug that managed to be fierce and loving, hard and tender at the same time, burying his face in the crook of her neck, his body shaking with something that was halfway between laughter and tears.

"So you really wanna do this?" she asked when he finally released her.

"I'd be lying if I said I didn't have doubts," he agreed, and she could see the shadow that flickered over his expression, "but I _swear _to you, Kate, I won't let you down. Not this time. Not again."

He placed his palm gently, almost tentatively against her belly, and she knew then that she was right to trust him, that he was telling the truth. He wasn't going to let any harm come to this child. "I'm gonna be better, for you and our kids. I want them to be proud of me."

She was touched when she realised that he had included Aaron in this, soothed by his determination to be a better father to him and this baby than either of them had had.

"I love you," she whispered, draping one arm across his chest and shifting closer to him when he crawled into bed beside her. "Don't ever forget that."

"I love you too," he told her, taking her face in his hands and lifting it to his, kissing her slowly, sweetly, making her smile as she settled back against him, enjoying how it felt to have him hold her without any tension or bitterness or secrets between them.

* * *

So that's the real end this time. My aim was to bring it full circle from "Trust" so I hoped you all liked it. (I'm sure I don't need to remind you what to do if you did, or if you really _didn't _;)).

For anyone who's interested (To save me having to write a second epilogue), the second baby was a girl, and Jack really did live up to his promise to be a good father this time. In fact, I have a feeling that he was a little overindulgent of both kids. :)

Thanks again for all of your support. Now I can go back to writing "Almost Perfect". ;)


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